CNN’s Dana Bash blew the whistle on Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), who claimed on Sunday that Elon Musk informed him of a government funding bill that the House was scheduled to vote on last week.
Hagerty alleged Musk’s posting about the measure on X, formerly Twitter, let him and others know what was in the more than 1,500-page piece of legislation, which Bash rejected.
On Sunday’s State of the Union, Bash observed that Musk expressed his opposition to the bill early Wednesday morning, before President-elect Donald Trump did.
“Then, senator, he posted 75 times over the course of that day attacking the bill, pressuring Republicans to tank it,” Bash wrote. “Donald Trump didn’t weigh in publicly for more than 12 hours, and only did so after it was clear Republicans were following Musk’s lead and turning on the bill.”
Bash questioned the Tennessee Republican, “So did Donald Trump only pick this fight because Elon Musk backed him into a corner?” Hagerty responded:
I certainly wouldn’t say that. And I say thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter because that’s the only way we would even know what’s in this bill otherwise. The conspiracy between the government and Twitter would have continued, and this would have all been covered up. But the fact is that Elon Musk exposing this meant that every one of our offices was inundated with calls from our constituents. The American public wanted to see this change. Donald Trump was speaking on behalf of the American public. Again, he’s just the president-elect. The current president is AWOL. But Donald Trump stepped up and said, look, this is what needs to happen. And I think all of my constituents, all of my constituents were there. The calls, at least that I got in my office, Elon Musk’s transparency helped make that happen.
Bash disputed the senator’s claim that Musk single-handedly informed him of the bill’s provisions.
She went on: “I understand it was quite large at the beginning, but to say that it was only Elon Musk that made people aware of what was in it, that – that can’t be true.” Hagerty responded:
No, I’m not saying it was only Elon Musk. We’re all struggling to read it to digest an over 1500 page bill that we were literally given just hours to comb through. I was working through it. My staff didn’t sleep the night before. It’s extraordinarily frustrating. But I think the added weight of the American public understanding and simple picture that Elon Musk put forward showing the size of the stack of what we originally presented, we started out with over 1500 pages. We got it down to 120 pages.